LifeBook ensures that the personal histories of the people we love can be
captured in detail in elegant, well-crafted books.

We delight in the stories passed down to us by older generations. Tales from the past reveal facets of our loved ones’ true personalities that we didn’t know before, and can bring family members closer together. But they are still just small sketches from a lifetime of experience, leaving a wealth of personal recollections and stories that can go untold.

A growing company, LifeBook, is helping people to ensure that the rich, personal histories of the people we love can be captured in detail in elegant, well-crafted books that can be handed down through the generations. These individual autobiographies, professionally written and illustrated with photographs, hold a lifetime of memories and can form an everlasting family legacy.

Not only that, but the process of creating a LifeBook allows the author to savour the experience of exploring his or her own life story. It can be a stimulating journey of discovery and a deeply therapeutic process as lost memories are reawakened.

Linden, who commissioned a book on her father from LifeBook, said: “It has been a wonderful thing, both for myself and my father. He was quite apprehensive about it at first, but once it got going he established a very good relationship with Will, his interviewer, and I know they had lots of fun, lots of laughs. He started looking forward to the meetings very much, and to the fact that someone was showing interest in him outside the family.”

Each LifeBook is compiled through a series of informal interview sessions. Over six months, an interviewer meets the “author”weekly to record conversations that will form the basis of the life story and select photographs and images that will illustrate it. “One of the great things about the process is that they got talking about things that family members don’t normally discuss,” Linden says. “It brought the memories to life. It’s lovely to read his first-hand account of when he met my mother, how she looked and what she first said – it’s priceless. And some of the deeper, more disturbing things that he hadn’t come to terms with himself, talking man to man helped to bring those out. It was a very therapeutic process for him.”

Linden received 10 copies of a beautiful hardback book with a printed, personalised cover containing 150 pages of her father’s life story, divided into chapters, including 100 colour and black-and-white photos.

The original idea behind LifeBook came about when its founder, Roy Moëd, realised that his father’s stories about his past experiences were dwindling as he got older. Precious memories were at risk of being lost, so Moëd took action. “I structured a blank autobiography and sent my PA to interview Dad every week,” he explains. “She would ask questions based on the file’s ‘chapters’, and soon found that one question led to another story and a dozen others. Very quickly he was remembering more and more. He eagerly looked forward to his interviews and would spend the intervening days thinking about the chapters of his life story and making notes in his file.”

Now, LifeBook is becoming increasingly popular as a gift, requested by sons and daughters who wish to preserve the memories of their older loved ones for future generations. The process of creating a LifeBook brings family members closer together as they learn more about the family’s past. And for the authors, LifeBook gives them a project to focus on. It also gives them the benefits of face-to-face companionship in the weekly interviews and a warming reminder of all they have achieved in their life.

For Linden, it was a highly positive experience: “I feel very happy because I have given my father this huge gift. It has made him happier and he’s got a newfound interest in life. He’s got more things to talk about and I think a sense of great pride.

“Also it’s something he can hand down to future generations. We’re all thrilled with the book, delighted – and I’m sure he’ll want to do volume two very soon.”

How LifeBook works

Each LifeBook is compiled through a series of interviews. Over six months, a dedicated personal interviewer will meet the author weekly for recorded conversations and to help select photographs.

Interviewers can be recruited and trained anywhere in the world, and will live within a half-hour drive of the author.

Each interview is transcribed by a professional writer who develops the life story. Every month the author reads and reviews the story and can also give consent to relatives to look over the story and provide additional material.

The last two weeks are spent checking and editing until the work is completed.

The final product is 10 beautifully presented hardback books, including up to 100 photographs on 24 pages and 126 pages of text — the product of 110 hours of interviewing, writing and editing. There’s also a Memory Box for the author’s possessions and a Memory Book for personal notes.

The cost is an initial deposit of £850 followed by six monthly instalments of £350 each.

To find out more or to commission a unique LifeBook for your loved one, visit lifebookuk.com or call 020 3291 1169